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Deprecated: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is deprecated, use preg_replace_callback instead in /var/www/theinfosphere/extensions/Poem/Poem.php on line 56Difference between revisions of "Leela's Homeworld" - The Infosphere, the Futurama Wiki

The Story

Act I: "Get back in the sewer, weirdy!"

"Just make sure you get my nonchalant side."

The Professor builds a new machine that produces glow-in-the-dark-noses, but also causes a great amount of toxic waste. Hermes wants the Professor to get rid of the waste for legal reasons, so the Professor hires Bender to dispose of it. He dumps it into the sewers, ruining Vyolet's wedding.

Meanwhile, Leela is named "Orphan of the Year" in the orphanarium she grew up in, the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, and attends a ceremony there receiving the award. During the ceremony, Vogel talks about the day Leela was left on his doorstep. She was found with a letter in AL1 and a bracelet, but Vogel never translated the letter. After this, Leela gives a speech telling the orphans to be proud of who they are, and they come to admire her. However, after the ceremony, she confesses to Fry that although she gave a speech telling the orphans that she was stronger being orphans, all she ever wanted was to have parents. Fry comforts her, and Leela says that she thinks that somewhere up in space, her parents are looking for. After she says this, we see Turanga Munda and Turanga Morris in the sewers, revealing that Leela is not an alien but a mutant.

Act II: "Mu-tate! Mu-tate! Mu-tate!"

After Bender shoves an entire whale in the sewers, the Sewer Mutants strike back and pull Bender, Leela, and Fry down with the whale. All three are sentenced to be dumped into Lake Mutagenic to be mutated. (The liquid can't harm mutants as they already are mutated; nor can it harm robots because they don't have DNA, but the mutants get around this by stating they'll beat Bender up afterwards). They are rescued by two mysterious robed strangers who somehow know Leela's full name. After the robed strangers help them, the mutants chase them, hoping to recapture them. While running from the mutants, the crew break into a house that has a complete biography of Leela pinned on the walls plus a lot of stuff she flushed down the toilet. They are caught by the mutants and sentenced to death, but the mysterious strangers intervene again and they are only banished from the sewers. Fry and Bender go to the surface, but Leela stays behind and dives into Lake Mutagenic in pursuit of the strangers.

Act III: "Isn't that the same machine that makes noses?"

Leela as a teenager, holding a birthday present given to her by her parents.

Leela finds that she is not mutated by the sewage and pursues the two strangers deep into the sewers. Fry, in the meantime, searches for clues on Leela's origins in the orphanarium, and acquires the note that was pinned to Leela's basket when she was abandoned from Vogel. The note is written in an alien language, so he takes it to the Professor to analyze it. He uses the Nose Machine, pointing out that there's no reason it can do things other than make noses. Although the Machine is unable to decode the language, it does find out that the note originated from the sewers.

During a flashback, we find out that Leela's parents are Sewer Mutants. Leela had so few mutations that they decided to give her up to the orphanarium to enable her to lead a real life on the surface. Her mother wrote the note in Alienese to convince the warden Leela was an alien, not a mutant. Her parents chose never to reveal her true origins so she would not learn the shameful truth. The only connection between them is a bracelet they left with their daughter, of which her mother has a duplicate.

Meanwhile, Leela caught up with the robed strangers after they fled to the house with Leela's biography. She threatens them with a gun, desperate to retrieve information about her origins. She finds the duplicate bracelet on one of the strangers, and suspects they have taken it from her parents after they killed them. The strangers confess the deed, and Leela is about to kill them when Fry literally drops in from above and reveals the truth - the strangers are indeed Leela's parents. They were so desperate that their daughter should not learn her true heritage that they were prepared to die rather than reveal that piece of information, and they fear their daughter might despise them because of all they did.

Leela, realizing that after decades of searching she has finally found her parents, embraces them - the family is reunited. During a flashback, we see that Leela's parents had been helping her all along, even though she didn't know who they were.

Reception

Additional Info

Trivia

One of the orphans who won an award for "Often Seen in the Background of News Spots" appears in the background of Leela's interview one minute later (see picture).

Other awards include "Diligent Flosser", "Has Tasted Every McDonald's Sandwich" and "Successfully Switched from Heroin to Methadone".

The closing song for this episode is "Baby Love Child" by Japanese pop-rock band Pizzicato Five. Link

The orphanage offers espresso to the orphans.

The pedestrian crossing sign in the sewers had an image of a person with two heads and three legs.

Fry was flashing the crowd at Space Mardi Gras.

When the mutants gave the gang a tour, all of the buildings behind Fry said "Dry Cleaners".

Alien code: When Leela looks down at her bracelet, you see the first official appearance of Alien Code 3. The code hasn't officially been translated.

In the flashback of how Leela's parents watched over her as a child, one of the math problems on her worksheet is incorrect.

Warden Vogel claims nobody on Earth, not even Brainzilla, can translate AL1 (Alienese), yet many other episodes contain AL1 written in places on Earth. For example, in "Bendin' in the Wind", Utah has been renamed Human Farm, written in AL1.

Perhaps whoever writes it in other episodes do not know English.

This is one of the only episodes to have no debuting characters.

In the UK this episode was rated U by the BBFC (meaning that it's suitable for all ages), yet, in America, it had a TV-PG rating (not suitable for younger audiences; parents may watch with kids or use discretion before letting kids watch the show unsupervised) for suggestive dialogue (D) and, on Comedy Central, all of the episodes (including this one) are rated TV-14 (unsuitable for kids under 14 years old).

Leela gives Kif and Amy the basket her parents left her in at the orphanarium. However it is revealed that Vogel dumps the baskets in a pile and given they are all identical, it is unlikely that it was the correct basket.

Goofs

When the screen pans over the orphan's awards, the "often Seen in the Background of News Spots" orphan is on the far left, but appears on the right as Warden Vogel hangs Leela's photo.

The bracelet on Leela's mother's tentacle only appears when Leela notices it and snatches it from her.

At the end of the episode, it shows Leela as an adult sleeping and before her parents tuck her in, you can see that she is not wearing her Wristlojackimator. In previous episodes, when you see Leela go to sleep or get out of bed, she normally has it on.

She could've just decided to take it off that night.

When they are in the hot-air balloon when they "fire up the sewer gas," Fry, Leela and Bender start coughing. Bender shouldn't cough when he is a robot who doesn't breathe or have a nose.

He may still have a sense of smell (one of his many senses), or he is just trying to fit in.

During most shots of the Leela's basket, the screw that connects the handle to the rest of the basket is silver. However, during one shot, the screw is brown.

Although the commentary states that the dead whale Bender stuffs into the sewer is Mushu, this is impossible, since Mushu doesn't appear for fourteen more episodes, and since that whale is a completely different type of whale than Mushu (probably an orca).

The Professor's Glow-in-the-dark noses is an obscure reference to the movie Skin Deep.

The mutagenic lake when seen from above resembles one big eye.

Quotes

Warden Vogel: It is not easy being an orphan. Not if I've anything to do with it!

Hermes: It looks like toxic waste. [He sniffs.] And it smells like toxic waste.Fry: What does it taste like?[Hermes tastes it.]Hermes: Delicious fig pudding! Ooh, that's good! But a distinct after-taste of toxic waste.

Amy: Wow! Cool!Bender: Now I can punch you in the nose in the dark! [Professor Farnsworth sneezes and turns the light on. The glow-in-the-dark nose is on Bender.] Where did it go?

Alien Language Sightings

Time: 3:32Location: Note attached to LeelaLanguage: AL1Translation: YOUR PARENTS LOVE YOU VERY MUCH